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Tuesday, January 22, 2008

A CLASSIC MIGHT HAVE BEEN, AND A TRAGIC GENIUS.

One of the things which had an iron grip in our house believe it or not, among eight brothers growing up in a Paisley housing estate was chess, we all played, some of my brothers were quite good and won school tournaments, I was rotten at it, no patience, that was the only thing I had in common with Bobby Fischer, no patience.

Fischer has now died and I am thinking back to his famous days when he turned the world of chess upside down, he was one of the few Americans that we liked because we reckoned he was so 'out of it' that he was really a citizen of the world and Mars.

Fischer turned the stern world of chess into show biz without knowing he was doing it, he beat Karpov and then went AWOL, he came back years later for money and played and beat Spassky, an incredible achievement.A story surfaced yesterday in the Guardian which was consistent with Bobby's bizarre life, back in 1977 there was a famous strike in London now referred to simply as 'Grunwick' the teller of the story was a journalist covering the picket lines.

Thousands of police ensured that bus loads of 'scabs' got through every day except, one day a woman picket through herself in front of one of these buses, the driver stopped and they didn't get through.This act of trade union heroism was carried out by a certain 'Regina Fischer' yup ! Bobby's mother, don't ask how this came about, I haven't a clue but I would love to know more.

The great 'might have been' IMO would have been Fischer V Karpov, another off the wall genius and great chess champion who won and lost against a multi million pound computer, no other player was game enough to try this. alas we were denied that contest. Just as we will never see great football teams from the past compete with the present, or tennis players do the same.

I will end this nostalgia on controversy (unlike me I know) I reckon the present incumbentFederer, could have beaten any former champ using a stick.

7 comments:

Dearest Terry,I know that you're an autodidact, so here are some facts for you:

1) Fischer didn't beat Karpov for the world title - he beat Spassky (which is why there rematch in 1992 was such an event);

2) Karpov played computers like almost every grandmaster, but the multi-million pound match you refer to is surely Kasparov's against Deep Blue;

3) far from Kasparov being the only player 'game enough' to try this, I can think off the top of my head of two human v computer tournaments of real importance since then: Michael Adams v Hydra in 2006 and Vladimir Kramnik v Deep Fritz (2002 and 2006)

In short, you know as much about chess as you seem to know about anything else: which is to say, nothing.

Keep up the good work - with advocates like you, socialism remains thankfully ever more unlikely

There’s a touch of the Bobby Fischers about you I fear, and I don't mean his chess abilities.

1/correct Karpov won the world title by default, I believe he beat an old curmudgeon called Victor Korchnoi who hated him to reach the final. Fischer done everything he could to prevent their match. At the time I thought Fischer would win but now looking back on it I’m not so sure.2/ Kasparov V Deep Blue, correct, He was the first high profile player to go out on a limb and do this in the full glare of publicity.3/ I assume you are right, after Kasparov.

The rest of your remarks are ignorant and show that you know as much about politics as I know about chess. Are you a ‘grandmaster’ of some lodge or other ?

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I represent Ward 4 Paisley North West. I'm a Socialist who believes in equality, peace and the redistribution of wealth, I opposeRacism, Sexism, Sectarianism, Nationalism and any kind of discrimination. Best wishes for a Socialist future.What appears on this website are my personal views and opinions. Not those of the Labour Party, Renfrewshire Council or anyone else, mine only.

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